The Cult of Martyrs in Asterius of Amaseia's Vision of the Christian City

For what is worth as much as these festival assemblies? And what is so august and all-beautiful as to see the whole city with one's whole race issuing from the town, occupying a holy place to perform pure mysteries of the most genuine devotion?

Few Romans of any era would have disagreed with these exclamations, though earlier generations might have been astonished that such familiar sentiments could issue from the mouth of a Christian bishop. The ideal of civic solidarity through worship and celebration was a familiar concept from ancient times, one which Asterius felt to be entirely in keeping with the practice of Christianity at the end of the fourth century. Asterius's festival homilies reveal part of the process whereby views on society and citizens became informed by Christian belief. First he offers a critique of traditional society and religion. Second he promotes Christian politeia, by means of martyr festivals, as the true foundation for social harmony. Three conceptual strategies emerge in Asterius's program for transforming classical politeia: recommending distinctly Christian philosophic virtue, depicting citizenship in terms of familial relationships, and employing an eschatological dimension to patronage.

6. John Chrysostom was a contemporary who also denounced Kalends at the turn of the fifth century, In kalendas. Milne, J.-P., ed., Patrologiae cursus completus: Series graeca [hereafter PG] (Paris: Garnier, 1857–1892), 48:953–62. See also Meslin, Michel, La fête des kalendes de janvier dans l'empire romain: Étude d'un rituel de Nouvel An, Collection Latomus 115 (Brussels: Latomus, 1970), 59. A hardening in imperial legislation in the 390s and popular antipagan sentiment led to tensions and violence in North Africa. For Augustine's experience, see Markus, Robert, The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 110–21. Still the celebration of Lupercalia, like Kalends, persisted despite the disapproval of bishops, Ibid., 131–35.

15. Meslin, 53–59. Processions to temples to offer prayers and sacrifices were replaced by a variety of innovations, most of which usually substituted analogous Christian practices.

16.Against Kalends, 5.1–2; Meslin, 71.

17. The Hellene orator and teacher Libanius was pleased about the emperor Julian's restoration of temples and traditional festivals as civilizing influences among rural folk and the lower classes; however, he was more concerned that the Antioch town council was not doing more to foster paideia, which he believed to be a gift from the gods, helping mankind understand and relate to the gods, Limberis, 386–87.

20. Alba Maria Orselli remarking on the western situation noted how city/town topography reflected the particular communal memory by which civic leaders sought to define their present and future community (183). Even while underlying values and insitutions might remain very similar, Christian leaders by building churches, shrines and instituting festivals reshaped their community's identity (181). “L'Idée Chrétienne e la Ville: Quelques suggestions pour l'antiquité tardive et la haut moyen age,” in Idea and Ideal of the Town between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, eds. Brogiolo, G. P. and Bryan, Ward-Perkins, Transformation of the Roman World 4 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 181–93.

31. In the mid-fourth century Cyril of Jerusalem emphasized the dynamic relationship between living and dead Christians as he lectured on the ritual of the Eucharist, Mystogogical Lecture V.4–10, in Cyrille de Jérusalem: Catéchèses mystagogiques, ed. P., Paris and A., Piedagnel, Sources chrétiennes 126 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1966).

32. Basil's paternal family fled their estates to the wilderness of Pontus to escape persecution and lived a hard life there for several years. Gregory points to the virtuous inheritance offered by the survivors of persecution “remaining to be trainers in virtue, living witnesses, breathing trophies, silent exhortations, among whose numerous ranks were found Basil's paternal ancestors, upon whom, in their practice of every form of piety, that period bestowed many a fair garland” (5), Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration XLIII Funeral Oration on the Great S. Basil, Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, 5–10, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, trans. Browne, Charles Gordon and Swallow, James Edward (1894; reprint Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), 7:396–97.

33. Martyrs help to strengthen the church and to make it grow by their example and their blood. Basil, Ep. 164, in Saint Basile, Lettres, ed. and trans. Y., Courtonne, vol. 2 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1961).

35.Gregory, of Nyssa, De sancto Theodoro, in Gregorii Nysseni Sermones. Pars II, ed. Cavarnos, J. P., Gregorii Nysseni Opera 10.1 (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 70. 20–22, πατρíς γ⋯ρ μάρτυρος το⋯ πάθους ⋯ χώρα, πολῖται δ⋯ κα⋯ ⋯δελφοí καí συγγενεῖς οí περιστεíλαντες κα⋯ καí τιμ⋯ντες. Gregory asserted that Theodore was martyred under Maximian and his fellow emperor Galerius, ca. 306 (De sancto Theodoro, 66.2–3). He is presented as a recruit from humble origins who, while at winter quarters in Amaseia, refused to take part in a sacrifice with the army. When the military authorities delayed acting on his case, Theodore set fire to the temple of the mother of Gods in Amaseia's city center. After being tortured, he was himself burned.

36.Rapp, Claudia, “‘For next to God, you are my salvation’: Reflections on the Rise of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity” (67), in The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essay on the Contribution of Peter Brown, eds. Howard-Johnston, James and Hayward, Paul Antony (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 63–81.

37. Maraval, 387.

38. It is important to keep in mind the overwhelming influence that the Bible had upon the language and understanding of the martyrs, their cult and relationship with Christians still on earth rather than seeing the cult in terms of direct adaptation of Greco-Roman religious practices. See Girardi's, Mario analysis of Basil of Caesarea in Basilio di Cesarea e il culto dei martiri nel IV secolo, 228. Also see William Horbury, who argues that Jewish Scripture and devotional practices in honoring God's “righteous ones” and their tombs and seeking their intercession provided the initial context for the development of Christian veneration of saints, “The Cult of Christ and the Cult of the Saints,” New Testament Studies 44 (1998): 4444–69.

39. PG 46:748C. This too reflects Rapp's contention that prayer and intercession lay at the heart of the relationship between holy men (in this case the martyrs) and their “spiritual families,” Rapp, 77. Gregory prayed not merely for safety from the Goth invaders, but ultimately for Theodore to nurture the “fruitful field of faith.”

42.Gregory, of Nyssa, , De sancto Theodoro, 63.22–25. Brown, Peter Robert Lamont, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity, Haskell Lectures on History of Religion, n.s. 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 11.

43.Phocas, 9.4. He compares the distribution of relics to the spread of colonies from a metropolis.

50.Mango, Cyril, The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453: Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972), 37–38, translates the artistic terminology in the following way: he calls the work ⋯ γραφή, which the painter (⋯ ζωγράφος) portrayed in colors (τ⋯ φάρμακα) on canvas [⋯ν σινδόνι]. Euphemia, a young woman from a good family, met her death in 303 or 304 at Chalcedon. In Asterius's account she had been a consecrated virgin. The picture that Asterius saw included details of Euphemia's torture before she was consigned to the flames. Janin, R., “Euphémie,” Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques15 (1963): 1409–10.

51.Holy Martyrs, 4.2–4. Asterius borrowed part of Gregory of Nyssa's prayer to Theodore in order to illustrate a model prayer offered to a martyr by parents on behalf of their sick child. Datema, Asterius, xxx–xxxi.

53. Conditions from the fourth century onwards contributed to a growing population of poor, often displaced peasants but sometimes smaller landowners who had been squeezed out by more powerful neighbors. These did not formally “belong” to the cities to which they sought refuge. Under the increasing direction of bishops, local churches, martyrial shrines, and various poor-house institutions attempted to address these working poor whose status excluded them from civic handouts. Brown, Peter R. L., Poverty and Leadership (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 2002), 34. Holman, Susan R. reviews classical views of poverty and poverty assistance in The Hungry are Dying: Beggars and Bishops in Roman Cappadocia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 10–12. See also Patlagean, Evelyn, Pauvreté économique et pauvreté sociale à Byzance, 4e–7e siècles, Civilisations et sociétés 48 (Paris: Mouton, 1977). Phocas, 9.3, πάντων τ⋯ν πτωχ⋯ν καì ⋯λητευόντων τ⋯ φ⋯λα προστρέχει τ⋯ς Σινώπης καθάπερ ταμιεíῳ. In Holy Martyrs, 4.4, Asterius combines τ⋯ φ⋯λα with οí ⋯σμοí (“swarms”) in a way that practically depicts the crowds of the poor as threatening invaders, whether tribes or insects.

57. See Caner's, Daniel review of the relationship between monks, martyrial shrines, and poor relief in Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 233–35.

58. See Ep. 176 to Amphilochius, in which Basil invites him to the celebration of the martyr Eupsychius of Caesarea and to visit the memorial shrine at the πτωχοτροφειον. Eupsychius was one of Basil's favorite martyrs, and he regularly convened synods for this feast. Eupsychius was martyred under Julian for his role in the destruction of Caesarea's temple of Fortune. Aubert, R., “Eupsychius,” in Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques15, ed. Albert, de Meyer (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1963), 1419–20. For other details and bibliographic references, see Rousseau, 182, n. 220, and Christ, Hans of Brennecke, , Studien zur Geschichte der Homöer: Der Osten bis zum Ende der homöischen Reichskirche (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1988), 150–52. On the “Basileias” complex, see Holman, 74–76.

59.Brown, Peter (Poverty and Leadership, 33–34) suggests that the institutionalization of Christian hospitality and poor relief through xenodocheia/ptôchotropheia was a post-Constantinian development.

60. See Patlagean, 425. The traditional expenditures of the elite functioned more as investments in social and political status and rarely benefited the poor.

61.Unjust Steward, 7.3, τοῖς έξ⋯ς ⋯λεθρíοις δαπαν⋯ντες. See also Against Kalends, 3.2. Asterius included the retinue of clients, flatterers, and parasites, and the sponsorship of games, horse-breeding, and entertainers. Peter Brown calls this redirection the “Christianization of euergitism,” Poverty and Leadership, 77.